The people who were in the original MWR group
started working at a McDonalds in Glasgow, Scotland, between 1996
and 1999. Amongst our number was Shlonghoover who never knew
where the line was, Zotard who had phat trousers, Funnywump
who'd been sacked by Burger King, Webel who read too much, Bouncer
who drank too much, Casper the stoner, Why-Bird the stoner,
Benjamin the brawler and Pes the fugitive. We worked for
McDonald's for different reasons, but mainly desperation. We
were quite good workers, we even won crew member of the month
awards. Then in 1998 they kept promising us bonus money and
then refusing to pay it. One night in the pub, someone got
the idea we should start a trade union! Assuming there was no
trade union
interested in the likes of us, we decided to try and start our
own. We collected signatures from 40 staff out of 60 but
while we were wondering what the fuck to do with them, the staff
turnover was so high that almost half our signatories had left or
been fired. Having failed so miserably we did the only
logical thing- we gave up.

But the idea was resurrected a few months
later. Damn it we thought, maybe the law's never going to
recognise our organisation, but that didn't mean we couldn't still
have one! We organised a secret underground cell of about 15
workers. Our first major action was January '99 when we
disrupted the night shift with a barrage of snowballs. We
started to stick together at work and because we did such a big
share of the work we were able to get away with a lot. Labour
costs went up, the pace of work went down, and we were decidedly
happier than before. We even began to introduce direct
democracy (though we didn't know the term back then) and made the
wrap and call person an instantly recallable delegate. We
began to challenge racism and other prejudice in ourselves and
others, we were learning quickly. As the new millennium
arrived, people started to drift off, managing to get new jobs or
preferring the dole to McDonalds.

Those of us who remained were getting
frustrated; we had done all we could without just getting ourselves
fired. We realised it was impossible to fight McDonalds in
one restaurant; we had to spread the rebellion to other McDonalds
workers in the UK and around the world. We started work on
the first issue of
McSues , a satirical magazine ripping the piss out of
that McNews rag. Mostly the first issue of McSues was filled
with jokes about Ronald McDonald's alleged paedophilia (symbolic
assaults on corporate imagery was our retrospective justification).
We contacted some fellow workers in England and with a mixture of
persuasion and threats, convinced them they wanted to set MWR up at
their restaurants. On October 12 th 2000 we went
public and
McSues, strangely, was an instant success. With help from an
autonomous community group and a sympathetic printer, we printed
2000 copies and set up an e-mail address where workers could write
to get them. We advertised our rag on McSpotlight and various
people helped distribute
it at their local McDs. It was photocopied and sent all round
the world from Sweden to New Zealand, there were even Greek and
Czech versions made! As workers started to get in touch we
were greatly encouraged, lots of them were supportive and everybody
agreed we had to do something. We opened a PO box so we could
collect letters without McDonalds catching us but someone kept
knicking all our mail. Hmmm. That Christmas we sent
senior management a card ,
we are still waiting for them to reciprocate.

We started taking things more seriously as we
were beginning to get a lot of e-mails asking for advice about all
different things. Then people started asking our opinions on
the ‘anarchist platform' and other things we'd never heard of
(we thought it was a Sex Pistols/ Gary Glitter tribute band).
So we had to start learning quick! The ideas we developed haven't really
changed.

Then a nice guy contacted us wanting to
do an interview for The Face
magazine . We'd knocked back a few journalists,
but The Face , how
cool is that? We continued to talk with different McDonald's
workers all over the UK and the rest of the world. We made
new friends like Workers
Resistance Against McDonalds and the controversial
McDonalds International Liberation
Front , and we sent material to workers who wanted to
organise a fight back at their store. We started to
hear inspiring stories about various campaigns of direct action at
different McDonalds, times that little things were won and times it
was just about revenge. We began to have a lot of information
to share- even though our numbers were declining until it was just
Bouncer, Webel, Wump, Zotard, Casper and Why-Bird. The
problem was that we knew McDonald's were hunting for us and we were
so determined to keep our heads down that we couldn't recruit
anybody new to our collective. Then we expelled Why-Bird
because he was a stoner who never turned up to meetings.

As 2001 came to an end, MWR was already a
successful network and then we started working on this
website. We didn't know the first damned thing about
computers, we thought windows 2000 was a double glazing firm.
The website looked even rougher than it does today. We worked
on it day and night and Bouncer managed to delete three days of
work. Which wasn't something he mentioned when discussing
the internet and labour
activism . But despite it being a bit crap, our
website started to get loads of hits, word spread through the
workforce and we had more e-mails to answer than we could keep up
with. Here's an early web page describing who we were . We started to build up
a large contact list and began sending out monthly bulletins . Then
loaded did an article
about us which was nice. At that time we were updating our
news page regularly and should you want to know what we were
writing about, here's some old
news . And then we produced
The Alternative Crew
Handbook , it was probably the most popular thing we
ever did. Hundreds of workers were reading it from the first
day, and everybody wanted to suggest their own skives and dodges-
we couldn't keep up!

We were performing many of the functions of a
union, explaining to workers their rights, providing advice,
support, or just someone to write to. We answered enquiries
on everything from rape to facial hair. MWR Midlands started up
with their own website, then MWR Manchester , in fact MWR
groups started to spring up all over the world. We were also
working like crazy to publicise our global day of action and things
were really flying- the workers were pissed! We formalised
our basic principles and
set up a system of local contacts. As we were going to
conferences, doing interviews and trying to contact as many workers
as possible, others were flyering, leafleting, putting up stickers
and doing graffiti at their restaurant to advertise the day of
action. When it finally came we were totally exhausted.
The morning before, Bouncer had been drinking for two days, took an
E, fell over a fence and woke up in hospital, which didn't really
help. Like everything we did, our action turned into a
farce. There were rumours of extra security at McDonald's
across Glasgow, so we went to another town, got lost, could only
find one McD's and it was doing an all night close, so we ended up
spray painting on a wall… nearby a McDonalds. But the
next day, while we were off work leafleting our co-workers in still
another town, the
International McStrike went massive! There were
attempted strikes in London and Paris, a work stoppage in Moscow, a
blockade in Milan, leafleting, pickets, walk outs, sick days,
thefts, sabotage, from Adelaide to Aberdeen, from Milan to Malmo,
the
International McStrike exceeded expectations!
And Wump ended up trying to talk in Italian on a crap mobile
connected at the other end to a tanoi broadcasting to hundreds of
people blockading a McDonalds in Milan. He might have managed
if he hadn't been caught short and needed a wee wee.

We started to get a bit carried away with
ourselves. At the European
Social Forum in Florence, we agreed to call an action
to support the popular rebellion in Argentina. At very short
notice we organised the
International McGo-Slow as Fuck! It didn't go
quite as well as we had hoped although given it was the Saturday
before Christmas where it did happen, it caused some queue!
At this time MWR was so well known in the workforce that
(pretending we didn't know anything about it) we had to put up with
co-workers quoting us all the funny bits from our site. It
started to piss us off. We had managers telling us jokes we'd
written and fucking up the punch lines.

Early in 2003, there was a nice article about
us in Counter Punch and
we distributed a survey to all our contacts. We began to
develop a federated structure which Wump now thinks was a big
mistake. We produced our first and only annual
report that had optimistic expectations for the year
ahead. MWR in Birmingham made a proposal that we should
launch a pay campaign and those of us in the UK decided
(Eventually) that we would concentrate on a campaign to win
£6.00 an hour, how were we about to do that?
We were so optimistic after the year before that we really
thought we could scare them into putting up wages at least a wee
bit. If our numbers were to grow the same way they had last
year then we could offer a credible threat of serious disruption to
normal service. But in fact people started to drift away,
leaving the job or leaving the struggle. And none of the workers in
other countries took on the work of organising the campaign over
seas.

We opposed
war and called for and participated in walk outs and
protests. We also produced the one and only issue of
MockNews
, which was kind of like McSues only shorter and online. But
things were not going well, our numbers were dropping and our
democratic decision making process wasn't working too good.
People weren't participating so much anymore, it was like we had
lost our ability to inspire. We had new rival organisations
that were promoting discussions about cheese when we wanted to talk
about justice! We set up an e-mail
forum to link MWR and the newer groups but only 70
people signed up and the other groups didn't really support or
promote it. We printed fucking thousands
of stickers in an attempt to kick start the pay
campaign but somehow we weren't having the same effect as we used
to. It was the same at work, we couldn't inspire our
colleagues anymore. In fact, after so many years working at
McDonalds, we could hardly bear to speak to them. Then, after
lucky clogs got to go and share our experiences with
the Canadian Labour
Congress , in the space of two months, the remaining
members of the original MWR clocked out for the last time.
The world reeled. Wump responded by doing an interview with the Japanese organisation
‘Shop Fight' , and another with some
French
Syndicalists . Bouncer responded by immediately
getting sacked from two new jobs. Casper responded by rolling
up some tokes. Everything fell silent until a cry erupted-
“MWR is dead, long live MWR!”

And so it came to pass that a new generation
would come to struggle under the banner that had plagued McDonalds
for so long. Once again the exploited were destined to rise
up against the Tyrants. This then is our gift to you; that
you may hold on to the ideals of MWR and struggle for your dignity
as others have struggled before you. We pass you some sort of
metaphorical flaming torch. It's up to you now
Topper…